1. Field of the Invention:
This invention is directed to a device for inclusion in customary point-of-sale shelf units and for the illumination of sales articles offered, especially in separate surmounted attachments, on the device.
In present customary point-of-sale gondolas or point-of-sale shelf units in department stores and shops, several products of different mode of packaging, different product variants or different manufacturers are often offered, arranged directly one beside the other, for sale to the customer. In such case, the data concerning price and product are often unclear and difficult to find so that the customer must initially take the product out of the point-of-sale shelf unit in order, for example, to be able to find the price. Also, for example special products, which in view of the usual diversity of products set out especially, can be made recognizable in pin-pointed manner for the customer only with special effort because of the usual unitary point-of-sale shelf unit structure.
For the customer, this searching among different sales articles lying one beside the other causes an appreciable loss of time and information. In additiona, the risk frequently exists that the products are not put back at the correct location. The sales person is also often excessively stressed and loses the overview of the location of certain goods and surveys the quantity of goods still standing at disposal only with difficulty. The illumination of point-of-sale shelf units in partial regions thereof in this case creates a facilitation of these problems.
2. Discussion of Related Art:
Known from German patent application No. 29 44 985 is an illuminated point-of-sale shelf unit insert, the head part of which is constructed to be illuminatable. However, this device is entailed by the disadvantage that the head part terminates with the formation of a downwardly directed projection so that indications of price and information, which are disposed at the front side of the shelf unit, are concealed and are no longer viewable, especially for scanning.
It is further known for the illumination of shelf units to mount masked, neon tubes at such units. This has the disadvantage that special illumination effects, possibly characterizing a certain product group, are possible only with very great effort and the width for placing a product is therefore dependent on the length of commercially available neon tubes. Furthermore, nonilluminated regions occur at the gaps between neon tubes placed in a row one against the other. This mode of illumination, also, is not suitable for scanning and obstructs the removal of goods from the otherwise planar region of the point-of-sale shelf units.
An object of this invention is the provision of a solution which makes possible the flexible illumination of point-of-sale shelf unit regions while maintaining a planar support surface and without concealment of the shelf unit front edge.